Lab upgrades urged amid Ebola outbreak scare

Dr Uraiwan Kositanont, president of the Virology Association (Thailand), said the threat posed by the Ebola virus required that labs be boosted to Bio-Safety Level 4 to examine people suspected of having been infected with the deadly virus, which the World Health Organisation places in Risk Group 4.
Thailand only has BSL-2 capacity in its laboratories using bio-safety cabinets and BSL-3 in labs using ventilation systems. which both have a high-cost management.
She said without BSL-4 labs, existing labs places even more cost comparing with other level, adding there's an ability to could still diagnose cases with various tests such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), antigen detection, serum neutralisation, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay, and virus isolation by cell culture.
Dr Rachana Santiyanond of Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of allied health sciences, who is president of the Association of Medical Technologists of Thailand, said the quality of this country’s medical laboratories was continuously developed and they were kept in compliance with international standards.
“Thailand’s Medical Technology Council uses ISO 15189 standards. So our laboratory has the basics to diagnose samples of deadly microbial diseases following universal precautionary principles,” Rachana said.
Last Thursday, a Guinean woman suspected of Ebola infection was tested for a second time by the Public Health Ministry. The blood test later showed a negative result, as she had malaria, not Ebola virus disease.
So far about 1,099 people travelling to Thailand from Ebola-hit countries have been screened, according to the Department of Disease Control, and none has tested positive for the disease.